Community Projects Sewing Day

We were a small group but we had loads of fun! And it was a lot less exhausting than the last day we got together.

The last time, Helen Anne, Diane and I got together, we were making kits. I think we made up about 24 kits in ONE DAY. A good number of those kits went out the door at the last Sit n Sew and we so appreciate everyone who took a kit to sew.

It was time for us to have some fun as well so we got to sew on a project yesterday. I laid out all the remaining kits and we each got to choose one. There are still ten waiting for the next sew day. If anyone is interested in coming to one of the community projects sew days, let me know.

Kits that we got to choose from

I had picked this mess of fabric to work on. It was supposed to be a quilt for my Dad and I started it years ago. Many, many years ago. The box was labeled flannel 9-patch.

A box of flannel bits

I started off by sorting through the stuff and found a whole stack of half-square triangles, some plain squares and then bits and pieces that were partially sewn to make nine-patches.

So I sewed nine-patches all day. At the end of the day, this is what I had.

What I had at the end of the day

I know - some pretty weird stuff but I think I can pull it all together. I've decided to make TWO quilts. I ended up with 80 nine-patches. More on those in a minute. I'm going to use black to make a 1" sashing and then add a border. It'll make a 60 by 72" quilt. I'll make another quilt using the solid squares and the half-square triangles. So after 18 years or so, this project is finally getting done. It's not even on my UFO list. Well - it would never show up there as it has been donated to the community projects pile.

 After making nine-patches from what was in the box, I had a total of 77. Oh, shoot - if I could find fabric to make three more. I had a few bits left and I managed to find some of the fabrics in my stash. So it was an easy job to make three more blocks. Some of the others had to be pieced to make them.

When I was finished, this is what I had left. Look at the dust on the cover of that box!

Scraps leftover

Isn't that awesome. I love it when it comes down to small pieces. I think we might delve into some crazy piecing next time we sew or depending on how many quilt tops come back next time, we might spend the day getting backings and bindings ready for them. We'll see what transpires over the next couple of weeks. I was checking through the flannel and there's a lot already pieced, but there's still a lot to be pieced into blocks. That's going to be a super fun day when we start that!

The remaining kits will go back into one of the tubs. The other tub (that had kits in it) is waiting for the tops to be returned. Will we ever empty any of those tubs? It seems that we've been working for several months and NOTHING has been emptied yet.

We are making progress and that's all that counts.

I managed to get TWO of the smaller quilt tops quilted in the last couple of days.

Community Projects quilt - DONE

A second community projects quilt - DONE

I was hoping to put the binding on yesterday, but we were so busy sewing that I didn't have time. By the time I finished the nine-patches, it was late in the day. I needed a break. The binding (which is made for both) will go on another day.

I made a concentrated effort to find that silly pair of glasses, but NO I could not find them. Well, I do have a second pair. The pair that I wore previous to this pair of glasses. Thankfully, my prescription hadn't changed much so I'm wearing that pair and taking meticulous care of them. Just like my new sunglasses. I'm sure that the other pair of glasses will show up in a funny location at some point, but I don't have time to waste looking for them.

I got some of the urgent paperwork completed yesterday. I'm now in meetings for the remainder of the week. Yippeee!!!!  But the meetings are interesting so I don't mind.

BTW - did you read that article on the 10,000 hours yesterday?  It was quite interesting. I don't necessarily agree with the other fellow who said he could learn anything in a year. I think he said he could learn anything in a year to the point that he wanted to learn it. I  need to go back and reread it more carefully. I do agree with the deliberate learning technique. That's the same as 10,000 hours basically - you can't learn just by watching - you have to be deliberate about learning. But there were some other interesting concepts in that article. I'll read it and make more comments another day.

On that note, I'm out of here!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!